Getting decent poker advice can be in achieved in several ways, you can go buy some poker books and videos and read and watch. The draw back to the books and videos is that they do not offer you any interaction. The other choice is to talk to a local pro that is willing to teach you or go to some of the seminars that are offered at the WSOP. A more practical choice is to find a poker forum online that has a decent community of poker players and start getting involved. I like all these tools but I find a good poker forum is the most practical interactive way to get poker advice.



When you start looking at a poker forum to join have a look at some of the posts and topics in the forum and see if their is some solid advice and if you like the feel of the forum. If the answer is yes. I suggest you join and get involved in a few threads and see how the interaction is. I have posted in several forums and have left some because once I started posting the replies were mostly unhelpful or rude. So even if the advice looks good until you post you wont know how the forum is actually going to respond to you. For example I posted at a very well known forum once. I had spent several hours reading posts and advice that was given buy other posters of the forum. The posts were quite informative so I decided to join and post. At the time I had a hard time cracking 1/2 no limit games. I posted a few times asking for advice on hands and explaining my situation. Well I was really disappointed when the replies to my posts were cut downs on the fact that I didn't use complete sentences or that my grammar was incorrect. Also someone posted "paragraphs are your friends" and things like "My eyes" all about making a poster feel unwelcome. Besides that fact I was posting in a poker forum and not soliciting help for my grammar. So my advice on finding a good poker forum is to go do a search on Google, Yahoo or MSN for the term "poker forum" and go thru the forum and see if the advice seems good and if the posters sound friendly and helpful.

I have found that some of the smaller poker forums are much easier to get interaction out of then the big ones like 2+2 forum which is probably one of the most well known poker forums on the internet. The problem I found on this forum is that the interaction is hard to get. Also if you play in an online poker room, more and more of them now feature a forum of their own. I have scanned some of those forum a and found some great advice and nice helpful members there. So when you are looking for a quality poker forum remember the biggest benefit of joining a poker forum is the interaction. You want to be able to post and get feedback from other players as to your situation. For example you might post something like " I played in a local poker tournament this weekend and had about 3000 in chips I was in early position and a very aggressive player in front of me that had made several all in moves. Goes all in again for the third time the blinds are 600 and I have about 2 more hands before I get hit with the blinds. I look down I have AK suited. I called and all others folded. The guy shows pocket 2's. No Ace or King came and I am out" Does this sound like a reasonable move or should I have folded my hand it is only A hi after all? Now if you are in a good forum you should start seeing some replies like: " How far in the tournament was it? Were you close to the money or were their lots of tables left? I think the call was reasonable based on your earlier observations, the fact you only had 5 times the blinds left and AK suited has some good possibilities. This is a classic coin toss situation that happens so often. I think the play was correct it just wasn't your day." Now you notice the reply brought up some questions and gave the posters view point on the situation. These are the kind of replies you want to see in a good poker forum.

A major benefit to being part of a poker forum is that you can pose questions and get replies from other poker players that can give you some different view points on a situation or give you advice on how to improve your game. Also you can share your experience with other poker players and use them as a sounding board for any poker theories you might have. I also like the social aspect of a forum. I have chatted and shared poker stories with people form all over the world thanks to a poker forum. So go and find you a forum and start posting !